Sump Advice

[bullit]

Hi. Im looking to upgrade my current setup and the use of a sump is interesting me. Bare in mind this will be used for a tropical setup but thought id post in here as im sure most of you run them. First question- Are they actually any hassle? are they ok to setup but once there going they are sound or can things go wrong. What if the power cuts, will there be issues then? Also is there guide to setup anywhere- ill start googling so i know pipework setups and what size pump to use? I take it a sump will out perform a couple of externals. It just would be nice having no pipes hanging in the tank aswell. Sorry for all the questions, hope that makes some sense. Cheers for any help.

 

[supershamus]

  I am not an expert but i have a sump in my tropical setup, (legacy from my marine setup).  I have a weir built in one corner, bottom of the tank drilled out at bottom of weir.  I dont have any problems/worries regarding power cuts, as the only water that flows back into the sump is minimal, it depends how deep my outlet pipe is.  In my opinion a sump easily outperforms a couple of externals, there is so much more filter material area.  Size of pump really depends on how much flow you want in the tank.

 

[bullit]

Ive had a little browse and found the only water that will go back to the sump is the water above the weir so thats alright. cheers

 

[supershamus]

If your outlet pipe is below the surface of the water it will certainly back syphon down to your sump.  There is a way of stopping it, it involves drilling a hole somewhere (i dont know where) in the outlet pipe to stop this from occurring.

 

[wildechild_01]

just size your sump so that it can handle the extra water in power outage and also a good idea to take into account flooding if drain gets clogged, this is accomplished by having a separate section of the sump to house the return pump that way if the drain gets clogged that section empties and the tank can accomodate the extra water... of course this can result in burning out the pump but better than flooding your house    If your looking at a pipe drain system rather than a weir then look up Durso stand pipes to avoid siphoning your tank into sump in power outage.  There is tons of information out there.... 

 

[bullit]

Is there a better system between the two? Does the durso sit on the outside of the tank then? As i want everything to be hidden. cheers

What sort of size sumpwould i need for a 5x2x2 setup? 3ft?

edit. What sort of media do you think i should be looking at?

I know i could scour the net but this helps

 

[wildechild_01]

The use of a sump on freshwater is a little different as far as media goes I would say though your going to want to use things similar to what you would find in any canister filter because really that's what you are building . As for size of sump? Big enough to fit all of your equipment and filter media.

The durso system would require a drilled tank so your best bet is going to be a weir of some sort unfortunately I don't know a whole lot about them but I know there is quite a bit of variety commercially available and know some people who have built their own.

Hope some of that helps.

 

[bullit]

Yeah, im gonna get the tank drilled. Im think im goinna go with a centre weir. Would this matter by having it central do you know?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am in the same situation as bullit. I am using a 40 gal tank as a sump for a 125 gal display tank. The primary reason was to be able to get another 25 gals of water in the system. The extra tank capacity for the sump is there to absorb the water if the return pump fails. My tank is not drilled, I am using an overflow box (I think what you call a wier). It is made by a company called Eshopps http/www.eshopps.com/
 
They make them with max flow rates of: 200, 300, 800, 900, 1,000 and 1,600 gph.
 
Here is my design, note the flow is end to end and there are no baffles etc.
 

Any input is appreciated and bullit feel free to steal any of it you like. Tho course media will not impede flow, the eggcrate is there to hold in the bio-balls when I need to rinse the blue media or the Poret foam. If the 20 ppi Poret restricts the flow too much I can replace it with either 20 or 10 ppi. While a single 1 inch outlet comes from the overflow box- I plan to split it in two just above the intake section in order to get a more spread out flow.

 

[bullit]

Will the thickness of pipe effect the flow rate or is it just the size of pump is used?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Both. Too narrow a pipe can slow output, too big a hose will not speed up a pump's output.

 

[bullit]

True. What are you going with as my setup will be similar to yours?